Thursday, August 05, 2010

Some Light Reading - Personal MBA

I first remember reading about The Personal MBA when it was little more than a list of essential business books on a weblog somewhere, claiming to be (if I recall correctly) the equivalent knowledge conferred in a traditional MBA program. (The details are fuzzy, but you get the idea.) And, I read fast, so I thought to myself, "Self, you should read most of those books, just for good measure." Also, I'm a scientist/engineer by training, and practically by definition am, ohhh, just a tad snooty about MBAs. That is to say, I agree with the pMBA manifesto:

MBA programs don’t have a monopoly on advanced business knowledge: you can teach yourself everything you need to know to succeed in life and at work.

But, life being what it is, of course I haven't come close to reading all these books. I have read a few though, and I'm generally impressed with the list, and the accompanying blog.

Here are a couple that I've read and particularly liked:

Getting Things Done by David Allen. I've raved about this at length before - while I'm nowhere near a black-belt right now, and my weekly reviews happen only very sporadically, I still think most of the principles outlined here for how to deal with ALL THE THINGS are spot on.

The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman - a classic; will change the way you look at user interfaces to everything.

Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management by Scott Berkun - I actually have an earlier version of this called The Art of Project Management - it is truly top-notch. (I own Myths of Innovation but haven't read it yet.)

Your Money or Your Life by Joel Dominguez & Vicki Robin - Deeply clarifying about what it is we actually need. I should re-read this again whenever I start browsing HomesDatabase.com.

Another I'd recommend that's not on this list (and is probably a little bit too specialized), is Managing Humans by Michael Lopp. It's really aimed at more geeky scientist types who get stuck in management situations without much help or air cover and is quite insightful.

Josh Kaufman, the guy behind pMBA, has written a book, Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume, that is coming out at the end of the year. I pre-ordered it through Amazon - what's one more book added to the list of 99 already here?

Comments

Hey, this is pretty awesome! I've often thought I'd like to take some MBA classes just to learn some of this useful stuff, but I am loath to sit in a classroom with a bunch of...you know...MBA students. Oh and the group projects - please god save me from having to do those. Every day of my life is a group project.